Behind us 3 ladies had set up their kitchen. There was a fire with a big round pot filled with water on it. Nearby were a few large bowls. I saw a lady pick up a chicken and go behind a big pile of sticks. A while later she came back with a dead chicken.
Here was a chance to see how it was all done. I noticed that one of the large bowls contained some plucked chickens. She laid the dead chicken on the floor and went for another live chicken. I didn't quite have the courage to approach. My chance of learning was potentially passing me by. So I steeled myself to walk over and say hello.
The ladies looked up, smiled at me and then carried on with what they were doing. So here's how it's done:
- Catch your chicken - chances are it's hiding from you somewhere so grab it quickly
- Hold it by the feet as you walk to your desired location
- Place the feet under your right foot with the chicken facing away from you
- Grab the left wing and put that under your left foot
- Grab the right wing and squeeze that under your right foot with the feet - the chicken is now immobile but not silent
- Take a normal table knife
- Stretch the chicken's neck up [Vegetarians and the squeamish should stop reading now]
- Use the knife to hack through the chicken's throat. Do not stop to break the neck. The chicken will bleed to death...eventually
- Keep chicken horizontal until most of the blood has come out onto the ground
- Lift chicken up by its feet until all the blood has drained - this might take a few minutes
- Place chicken in hot water and turn it
- Leave for a minute
- Pluck - remembering to pull all the bits off the feet as well
I went back to standing with Abraham, watching men unloading a massive lorry. It had a flat bed trailer with three sets of rear and front wheels. It was large. They had reversed it into the small gap between the mango tree and the HR office - to minimise the unloading distance into the building's store room and make use of the shade of the tree.
Suddenly there was a lot of screaming and all the men ran away from the lorry at high speed. I saw something that looked like a snake move under the rear wheels of the lorry. I pushed Abraham about a foot away and then curiosity got the better of me and I turned back leaving him behind me. It wasn't likely that the snake was going to come flying out and attack Abraham I figured. Although next time I checked on his location he was about 10m further away.
I looked on the floor but couldn't see the snake anymore. It couldn't have come out so it must be up in the axles somewhere. I'd read about this in the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency - who knew that it was going to prove a good textbook. The men quickly came to the same conclusion. The driver started revving the engine (a good 10m away) to scare it out. That didn't work.
Next he pulled the lorry forward so there was better access to the rear wheels. A man came forward gingerly to throw water into the back wheels to scare the snake out. Another man tried a long stick. All I could hear was people saying 'Muzungu'. They seemed surprised that I wasn't scared. I figured that it was fine as long as I kept a respectful distance - the snake I'd seen was relatively small, it wouldn't be able to strike me without me seeing it first.
The driver grew impatient and suddenly set off at high speed towards the Mortuary. Then he reversed madly back. People tried again with sticks to get at the snake - which was being sighted occasionally. One guy nearly got admitted when the driver set off in reverse again while he was leaning over the wheels at the back. The lorry went all the way back to the front of the hospital before flying forwards. I was more scared of the mad lorry driver than the snake, I thought. We didn't need to make more patients for the surgeons right now!
This time the snake decided to make its exit. It dropped to the ground as the lorry passed me. Immediately a man threw a rock at it, giving it and my foot, a glancing blow. Then the stick man came in to finish the job. I persuaded him to stop when the neck and body were crushed and its bowels were sticking out. He laid the snake on the floor so that I could get a picture and try to work out what it was. It was silver with no other markings and a light belly. It didn't have a coffin shaped head. It looked a bit like a Mozambique Spitting Cobra that I'd seen before but the neck was a bit too mangled to get a good identification. Whatever it was it was a juvenile, probably, only a metre long or so.
The very end of the tail was flicking back and forth. The men assumed this meant the snake was still alive. As if the massive injuries they'd already inflicted weren't enough to protect them. They wouldn't listen to me when I told them it was dead. A further massive pummelling ensued until it was barely recognisable. Then it was paraded around to prove that the massive predator had been felled. The men got back to work.
From the crowd of people watching a man approached. He was dressed smartly.
'I don't think it was a dangerous snake. It's just one that lives in trees eating eggs and things like that. It probably just fell from the mango tree into the lorry.'
'Do you know what it is? I thought maybe a spitting cobra'
'I don't think so'
It's quite a sight to see grown men running afraid from something so small. It's understandable - there are very nasty snakes in the area including spitting cobras, puff adders and mambas - it is better to be safe than sorry, but at the same time I can't help but think that the total snake population is paying a heavy price for the danger posed by only a few species.
No comments:
Post a Comment